


what even are horses

by fitzefitcher



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: F/M, Secret Relationship, WotLK Era, this is literally a shitpost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 15:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11694909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fitzefitcher/pseuds/fitzefitcher
Summary: Right, so Garrosh gets up on a mount for the umpteenth time and eats shit in like, thirty seconds. It’s a record, probably.





	what even are horses

**Author's Note:**

> from @sithisis: “You heard me. Take. It. Off.” for Jaina/Garrosh, if you'd like? Could be funny, shippy, or even both! *blows kiss* (for your lovely writing style. love that purple prose) 
> 
> in place of purple prose please accept this humble shitpost
> 
> takes place in the same universe as "eyes that shine burning red" but contains no actual explicit content, just implications of it.

So here’s the thing: Garrosh is awful at jousting. There’s no getting around it- he’s just fucking awful at it, and he knows it. Everyone knows it. Horses are too small and too flighty and weird and wolves weren’t meant to fucking joust, alright? And jousting is a useless sport, anyway. It’s stupid and pointless, and they should be using their resources to go after the Lich King, but _no,_ apparently they have to charge at each other with sharp, pointy objects and try _not_ to kill each other because it’s _symbolic,_ or something, whatever garbage Thrall (and then Jaina) had told him about the sport.

Anyway he’s supposed to be practicing because he and some alliance champion fuckhead are supposed to start off the tournament by “symbolically” fighting each other to try and foster good relations between Horde and Alliance, it’s such a load of horseshit honestly. Who the fuck thought that pretend-fighting was going to end three decades-plus of war? Tirion Fordring, apparently, the doddering old fuck.

Right, so Garrosh gets up on a mount for the umpteenth time and eats shit in like, thirty seconds. It’s a record, probably.

It’s the worst landing he’s had in a couple tries, to the point where Thrall and the medic on hand actually jog over to see if he’s okay. Luckily, most of the people in the stands, as sparse as they are, aren’t really paying attention. They’re too busy chatting amongst themselves. Except for Jaina, of course, who’s watching the proceedings fascinatedly. She _was_ talking to Thrall up until he landed in the fucking dirt, this being one of the few times they can actually speak to each other, but again, that was until he was pushed off of his wolf and landed in the fucking dirt. The other jouster he’s practicing with- a huge-ass troll death knight, because that’s fucking fair, pitting him against someone who already knows how to play this stupid game on a mount that was literally made for it- cringes.

“You alright?” he calls across the field.

“Does it look like I’m alright?” Garrosh snaps, making a valiant effort to talk despite having the wind knocked out of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jaina cover up a snicker. The troll shrugs.

“Why would I ask if I didn’t already know?” he calls back. “You got up alright every other time.”

“Fair enough,” Garrosh mumbles grudgingly after a moment. He tries to get up, and stabbing pain shoots through his chest, so he just lays back down. The medic- a troll, Shuuna, he should say, given that she’s a medic from Warsong Hold and has already dealt with his shenanigans- sighs under her breath and kneels down next to him.

“What hurts?” she asks succinctly, giving him a cursory once-over before attempting to move him.

“Think I cracked some ribs,” he replies.

“Surprised you haven’t already,” she says. “Alright, let’s get you to the first aid tent. Can you get up at all?” she asks, as if she literally didn’t just see him lie right the fuck back down. He gives her an exasperated look, and she raises her eyebrows at him expectantly.

“Try turning over and then getting up, so you’re lifting with your legs instead of your chest,” she advises. It works, frustratingly enough. He’s still hurting, to be fair, it’s just not as bad as it was before. He manages to shuffle over to the first aid tent okay, though. Jaina gives them a little wave as they make their way over, and he and Thrall wave back.

The tent isn’t particularly big, but it’s warm, probably enchanted to be so judging by the runes hastily painted onto the canvas, and it does what it’s supposed to do while the actual first aid area is under construction. There isn’t really a need for a bigger tent when there’s not very many people around aside from those putting up the buildings around them, and the construction workers have their own across the way. No, this one was thrown up pretty hastily, and for the express purpose of the horde champions practicing to open up for the tournament in a week or two. They needed a space to practice, as did the alliance champions, and they needed to be out of the way. Hence, their own tent, small as it may be.

“I need you to take off your chest plate so I can take a look at you. I’ll be out here,” she tells him, motioning outside the tent as he walks in. “You let me know when you’re ready.” He nods, and she closes the flap.

Now this is all well and good, until he actually peels off the armor, and remembers what’s under there.

There are several marks that… didn’t necessarily come from the jousting. The bruising he can cover, sure, hell he’s been getting more and more as the day’s been going on, but he’s not sure if getting knocked off a mount will explain away why there’s some dotting either side of his neck. Or, furthermore, why there’s multiple long, narrow scratches going up his back, that in no way can come from falling off a mount.

“You ready?” Shuuna asks.

“No,” he snaps, panicking slightly. He hears her sigh, and she and Thrall mutter amongst themselves, which only makes him panic more.

“You alright?” Thrall asks. “Do you need help?”

He hesitates.

“I’m coming in,” Thrall says.

Fuck. _Shit._

He scrambles, and manages to get one of the towels stacked up on the small table wrapped around himself before Thrall sees his back. Moving that fast fucking _hurt,_ but it was worth it.

“Are you alright?” Thrall asks, closing the flap.

“I’m fine,” Garrosh snarls. Thrall squints at him. “I’m alright,” he tries again, calmer. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” This only makes him raise an eyebrow at him.

“Five minutes ago you could barely get up, you’re not fine,” Thrall points out.

“Thrall, I’m alright,” he asserts. Thrall watches him for a moment. As it turns out, he can feel sweat beads forming on his body in real time. It is not at all a pleasant experience.

Thrall pokes his head out the tent, and Garrosh, knowing that it’s his demise he hears, hears him say, “Can you give us a minute?”

“Garrosh, what’s going on? You’re acting strangely,” Thrall asks him, genuine concern in his voice. Garrosh absolutely does not need his misplaced martyr horseshit right now. “Are you alright?”

“Thrall, I’m fine. Really,” he insists. “I just had the wind knocked out of me, that’s all.” It doesn’t appear to convince him; Thrall frowns and his brow furrows with worry.

“That looked like a really bad fall. At least let me take a look if you won’t let the medic do it,” he pleads, guilting and bargaining in one. And Garrosh knows there is really nothing he can say to that, that isn’t incredibly suspicious. Not that this isn’t already incredibly suspicious, but he can at least say he tried.

“Fine,” he allows, and lets Thrall help him take the towel off. Thrall takes one look at the massive amount of bruising around his sternum and winces.

“You really took a beating out there, huh,” he says sympathetically.

“Yep,” Garrosh says.

“I’m going to feel around and see if anything’s out of place,” he tells him. “Let me know if I hurt you.”

“Uh-huh,” Garrosh says. Dread is written in every line of his face, and he’s not sure how the fuck Thrall hasn’t noticed it yet. He doesn’t worry about it; he will. It’s only a matter of time.

Thrall is exceedingly careful with him, which is about what he expected, and is able to pinpoint the actual injury in question relatively quickly.

“It doesn’t feel like anything was moved around too much, but you do probably have some cracked ribs,” Thrall says. He moves around to the back.

“Looks like you have quite a few cuts back here, too,” Thrall continues conversationally. Garrosh says nothing. “Hmm. These look a little old to be coming from the fall; they’re already scabbing over.” Garrosh continues to say nothing. This is by far the single most painful thing he’s ever had to endure.

Actually, no, scratch that; the very second that Thrall realizes what they are is the single most painful thing he’s ever had to endure.

There is a marked change in Thrall when he does; he stiffens abruptly, going silent from disbelief and what is most likely rage. Thrall does say a single goddamn thing to signal this, but he doesn’t really have to, to be fair. There has already been an actual change in the atmospheric pressure of the tent, courtesy of the weather broadcasting his emotional state for him. Perks of being a shaman, apparently. Garrosh might be dying a little bit from it, but that’s okay, he had a good life. It can end here, literally at any time. Now would be preferable.

“What the fuck,” Thrall says. He’s not really sure if he’s ever heard him utter those words before. It’s a little unreal, to be honest.

“Uh,” Garrosh replies intelligently.

“What the _fuck,”_ he says again, because once wasn’t enough. “Are you fucking kidding me right now, Garrosh? You didn’t want the medic to look at you because of _these?”_

“Sort of,” he doesn’t reply, electing to sigh deeply instead. “It’s more complicated than that,” he continues to not say. Thrall only enrages further. Apparently, when he’s angry, there’s a lot more talking with his hands, which are now gesticulating wildly with every word.

“This is so- _immature,_ first of all, why the fuck would she care, she has already seen _so much worse_ from you,” he hisses at him, stomping around to look at him. That’s. That’s true, actually. He thinks she actually might have taken chunks of metal shrapnel out of his body at some point, but honestly he’s gotten grievously injured so often that it’s sort of hard to remember who’s putting him back together.

“And second of all, _why the fuck do you care?_ I have literally seen you walk around bare-assed naked around Grommash Hold without a care in the world, and now all of a sudden it matters?”

Okay, no, that one’s not fair. It was the middle of the night and also a heat wave; he was just getting some water. He can’t be held accountable for that. Also:

“I wasn’t completely naked,” he protests. Thrall throws up his hands, exasperated.

_“You might as well have been,”_ he asserts. “I shouldn’t be in danger of seeing your _entire ass_ out in the breeze because you couldn’t be bothered to put on pants.”

“Well you wouldn’t have if you actually were asleep at three in the fucking morning like the rest of us instead of working all night,” Garrosh points out. Thrall squints at him, and it’s a look Garrosh recognizes. It translates to something along the lines of, _of all the inane shit you could have picked to argue about you went with this?_

“Don’t change the subject,” Thrall says, jabbing a finger in his face. “I am not the one under fire here.”

“I didn’t realize I was under fire for wanting _privacy_ ,” Garrosh snaps.

If looks could kill, Garrosh would be a smoldering pile of ash at the bottom of a crater.

Thrall takes a moment to compose himself, turning away from him and breathing deeply. It doesn’t appear to work; he looks more restrained than relaxed.

“Garrosh,” he starts slowly, turning back around. This is somehow worse than the manic flailing and hissing. “Is there some reason that, despite you being open about literally every other liaison you’ve had, you need to keep this one so private that you can’t even let a medic look at you to do their job?”

“Yes,” he snaps impatiently, mulish.

“Okay,” Thrall says, taking another breath. “Can you tell me what this reason is?” Garrosh hesitates.

“No,” he grumbles. Thrall sighs.

“Okay,” he says again. “That’s fine,” he continues, it clearly not being fine, but he won’t fight Garrosh about it. “Let me just take care of this, then.” He nods grudgingly, giving Thrall his assent.

Getting healed with magic is always a slightly jarring experience- it’s not really a common occurrence to feel your body stitch itself back together in real time- but the injury isn’t actually too bad as far as Thrall can tell, and heals easily enough.

“I should probably take care of these, too, while we’re at it,” he says, gesturing to the scratches. “Wouldn’t take long. It would help you cover your tracks, too,” he continues, reaching for them. Garrosh grabs his wrist just before his hand makes contact with skin.

“Don’t-” he starts. But he can’t finish that sentence, because there is literally nothing he could say that could make this better. Thrall is dead inside.

Thankfully, this particular moment doesn’t overstay its welcome, as it’s interrupted by Jaina checking in on them.

“Hey, you alright in there?” she calls through the canvas. “I have to leave soon; I was going to meet back up with Varian.” Thrall looks at Garrosh; Garrosh nods.

“You can come in, it’s alright,” Thrall replies. She comes in a moment later, careful to close the flap behind her.

“Everything alright?” she asks, looking between the two of them. She looks at the bruising on Garrosh’s chest and cringes.

“Yes, he just took a little more of a beating than we thought he did,” Thrall explains, and it’s really remarkable how well he can hide the fact that he’s dead inside. As a friend, Garrosh feels that fundamentally he should be really worried about that. But later, later.

“I can see that,” she replies. “Thought I suppose it’s not that much of a surprise, seeing as you’ve been getting you’ve been getting knocked around the whole arena,” she says, teasing. Garrosh scoffs.

“Don’t you worry- I’ll be back on my feet in time to put your champion in their place,” he says, playing back.

“Oh, I’m sure,” she replies, mock-agreeing. “You were very intimidating when you were knocked flat on your back.” Garrosh rolls his eyes.

“Anyway,” she says. “I’ve got to get going. I’ll see you later, alright?” She goes in for a quick hug with Thrall and a kiss on the cheek, with the kind of casual intimacy that siblings have.

“Good luck,” she says cheerily, sing-song. “You’re going to need it.” Garrosh scoffs again, and she leaves. Thrall, without turning back to look at him, says:

“It’s Jaina, isn’t it.”

It’s not a question; it’s not even phrased as one. Thrall already knows. He doesn’t even have to look at him, and he knows. It’s probably good, because Garrosh seems to have completely lost the ability to reply. He’s mostly just frozen in place at the prospect of Thrall putting two and two together. He finally turns to look at him, and Thrall looks like he just got saddled with telling all the kids at the orphanage that Winter Veil is cancelled forever because Greatfather Winter isn’t real; a nice, hearty mix of exasperation, resignation, apathy, and a world-weariness that goes all the way down to his soul.

“Could be worse,” Garrosh finds himself saying, for some fucking reason. Garrosh watches approximately three years get shaved off of Thrall’s lifespan.

_“Don’t say that,”_ he says. _“Why would you say that? Don’t put that evil on us,”_ Thrall pleads with him, slightly angry and slightly hysterical. Garrosh shrugs.

“I’m just saying,” he says, unable to stop himself from poking the bear. “It could be a lot worse.”

“Yeah, she could be pregnant,” Thrall jokes morbidly, already in a full self-destructive spiral.

The two of them freeze.

“Garrosh,” he starts again, slowly. “Please tell me you are using some kind of protection.”

Garrosh hesitates. They are, but he kind of lives for the look on Thrall’s face when he’s staring straight into the abyss.

“Garrosh,” Thrall says, the threat of violence palpable in the air. He is a man with nothing left to lose.

“Obviously,” Garrosh says.

“You are literally killing me,” Thrall tells him matter-of-factly. Garrosh just nods. He’s not sorry.


End file.
